..There is increasing evidence that B lymphocytes are involved in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis, and they may be a therapeutic target. Rituximab, a monoclonal antibody, selectively targets and depletes CD20+ B lymphocytes...

..Multiple sclerosis has a clinically significant heritable component. We conducted a genomewide association study to identify alleles associated with the risk of multiple sclerosis...

Linkage and association with the NOS2A locus on chromosome 17q11 in multiple sclerosis

Lisa F BarcellosDepartment of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143 0435, USAAnn Neurol 55:793-800. 2004

..Our results provide strong evidence for linkage and association to a new candidate disease gene on chromosome 17q11 in MS and suggest that variation within NOS2A or a nearby locus contributes to disease susceptibility...

..This finding is unlikely to be solely explained by admixture, since a substantial proportion of the susceptibility chromosomes from African American patients with MS displayed haplotypes consistent with an African origin...

Refining the association of MHC with multiple sclerosis in African Americans

..Recombinant interferon beta therapy is widely used to reduce disease activity in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, up to 50% of patients continue to have relapses and worsening disability despite therapy...

Synergy or independence? Deciphering the interaction of HLA Class I and NK cell KIR alleles in early HIV-1 disease progression

Jason D BarbourHIV AIDS Division, Department of Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of AmericaPLoS Pathog 3:e43. 2007

..e. IL1 beta, IgVH, and IL2R gamma among others) and a striking down-regulation of several GluRs, in particular mGluR4. This type of analysis may prove useful in describing the molecular events underlying intractable epilepsy...

Sergio E BaranziniDepartment of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 94143, USAJ Immunol 174:7412-22. 2005

..Our study demonstrates the utility of large-scale transcriptional studies and advanced data mining to decipher complex biological processes such as those involved in MS and other neurodegenerative disorders...

Transcription-based prediction of response to IFNbeta using supervised computational methods

Sergio E BaranziniDepartment of Neurology, School of Medicine University of California, San Francisco, USAPLoS Biol 3:e2. 2005

..Galactocerebroside, the major glycolipid of central nervous system myelin, is a known target for pathogenic demyelinating antibody responses in experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), the animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS)...

..Because the linear and conformational antibody determinants of MOG are shared between marmosets and humans, these results are directly relevant to understanding effector mechanisms of organ damage in MS...

Lisa F BarcellosDivision of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA, and Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke s Hospital, UKHum Mol Genet 15:2813-24. 2006

..A particularly important result is that the power of an admixture mapping study to detect a locus will be nearly the same for a wide range of mixture scenarios: the mixture proportion should be 10%-90% from both ancestral populations...

Investigation of seven proposed regions of linkage in multiple sclerosis: an American and French collaborative study

..We describe here the first high-powered admixture scan, focusing on 605 African American cases and 1,043 African American controls, and report a locus on chromosome 1 that is significantly associated with multiple sclerosis...

..Similarly, no difference in the distribution of responders and nonresponders to interferon-beta (IFNB) therapy, as defined by primary and secondary end points, was observed when individuals were stratified according to HLA-DR2 status...

..Her health care plan requires that infusion therapy be given at the hospital's infusion center, yet for various reasons, the drug was not yet approved by the formulary. She remains unable to receive the drug...

..Maintaining clinical vigilance allows for early suspension of natalizumab in potential cases of PML, thereby increasing the opportunity for immune reconstitution, which may improve prognosis if PML is confirmed...